The war is over, but will Blu Ray ever get as popular as DVD?

Question

I hear a lot of people say on-demad is the way of the future, and I kinda agree. Buying discs, even if Blu Ray prices come down, seems kind of old school. (Bought any music CD's lately?) But, then again, I never accumulated a collection of VHS or DVD either.

In a way music cd's make even more sense than video. At least in 20 years the music is the same. How are those old VHS's looking these days. I don't even have a player anymore, and I'm glad I didn't invest in movies.

I think I definitely would rather have something like a netflix on-demand than accumulate a bunch of discs that can be damaged and become obsolete. What do you think?

Answer 1

i second miguel on this one. 2008 will be a big year for home media players. As high speed internets becomes more affordable more and more people will start downloading media. More companies will start making players to play this media on your tv which should eventually wipe completely wipe out this system of walking to a store and buying a disk.

Answer 2

Downloadable movies is the eventual successor. Blu-Ray will have it's growth but it won't get as popular as DVD did. Some people are jumping straight to downloadable movies. Look into Vudu, LG and netflicks, Apple TV(which was a little early to market but in the right ballpark), DirecTV is just got into the mix with Direct On Demand. As more thing in your home get connected to the internet it is inevitable. It is too convenient, movies are cheaper, never out of stock and you don't have to get out of you jammies to get one. You never forget which one the wife told  you to get.

Answer 3

Good question .. and no-one really knows yet.

But here's my take.

DVD was the perfect media for it's time, and nothing will ever be as overwhelmingly dominent again.

DVD is gradually losing sales (down about 3% in 2007) as consumers increasingly have other viable options that meet their needs. For example Blu-ray addresses the need of some for better picture and sound, while still fledgling download and VOD services address the need for convenience. Both these options will cut into DVD sales, but neither will dominate.

Here's my rationale:

DVD replaced VHS quickly because it solved all the problems with that format (fragile, gradual degredation, poor picture and sound, no random access, relatively bulky). Yet VHS is still around .. you can buy the tapes and the players.

Blu-ray doesn't solve any problems, it just gives a bit better picture and audio ... it's an incremental improvement, costs significantly more and -- unlike DVD -- only a minority of consumers can benefit.

There are 80,000+ DVD titles in the catalog ... and growing faster than Blu-ray (currently just over 500). HD media (HD DVD and Blu-ray combined) sold 8.3 million disks since introduction. In the same time after introduction DVD sold 16.3 million --- proof HD disks are not catching on the same way.

Blu-ray is, and will remain, a premium priced HD format available as an alternative to DVD -- not a replacement. And the studios want it that way since they will make more money by selling both DVDs and Blu-ray -- DVDs for the majority of consumers who want to own a physical disk and Blu-ray to those willing to pay the higher prices.

Download and HD Video on Demand-type service will cut into DVD (and probably kill the rental market) and to a degree Blu-ray sales --although as with CDs download won't take over since, first, so many people prefer to own the movie and second, downloads/VOD will inevitably be lower quality video and audio than Blu-ray.

Answer 4

I just bought a DVD/VCR combo last week. I intend to purchase regular DVD's unless there is nothing else. I still have VHS tapes and I don't intend on just throwing those out unless they go bad.

This was a war I did not care about.

Answer 5

I think that I have enough VHS and DVD to open my own video store, but then, that's just me . . .

And Blue Ray will take over as DVD will be phased out over time, just as VHS beat out BetaMax.

Answer 6

Flash memory is getting cheaper every day.  It wouldn't surprise me if some sort of memory card took over from optical memory.  They're ideal for portable media players, and for home media servers they could plug into a multislot card reader which would avoid the DRM issues of ripping them to a hard drive.